


anchor

by sparxwrites



Series: Critical Role hc_bingo [3]
Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Body Modification, Branding, Catharsis, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Healing, Implied/Referenced Torture, brief flashbacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-12
Updated: 2016-09-12
Packaged: 2018-08-14 17:21:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8022517
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sparxwrites/pseuds/sparxwrites
Summary: It takes weeks to make the iron. The sketching comes first, pages and pages of neat, curving lines in an attempt to simplify the de Rolo crest into something he can cast. Casting comes next, and it’s an intricate, fiddly process, building the mould and fussing with it until it’s perfect, flawless.
When he’s finished, he holds the handle of the branding iron he’s created in his hand, eyes the crest on the end of it, and exhales slowly.





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It takes weeks to make the iron. There’s other projects that are far more important: bullets for Bad News and Retort, more exploding arrows for Vex, new daggers as a gift for Vax – because Vax still can’t seem to look him in the eye without seeing the man who killed his sister, and Percy would like to change that. So the iron takes a backseat, relegated to the rare moments where he has nothing else to work on. The times when it’s late enough or he’s tired enough that he dare not work with black powder for fear of losing his sleep-clumsy fingers.

The sketching comes first, pages and pages of neat, curving lines in an attempt to simplify the de Rolo crest into something he can cast. He’s a skilled tinkerer, but not even he can shape iron into something that intricate, that small. So, using his memories of Keyleth’s skywriting, he simplifies, and simplifies again, a sun surrounded by curves and lines, until he’s satisfied.

Casting comes next. It’s an intricate, fiddly process, building the mould and fussing with it until it’s perfect, flawless. The time and effort are worth it, though. Every second, every bead of sweat, every curse, is worth it.

When he’s finished, he holds the handle of the branding iron he’s created in his hand, eyes the crest on the end of it, and exhales slowly. Unevenly.

Percy’s been branded… well, saying _many_ times seems an exaggeration, even with his penchant for the melodramatic, but far more times than any person should. The mark of the Slayer’s Take on his shoulder is the most recent, a strange new set of dips and lines under his fingers when he bathes, but there are others – a symbol marking him as an inmate of the prison Vox Machina had found him, a line across one thigh where he’d been clumsy in the workshop with a hot poker. A heavily scarred patch of skin, silvery-purple shiny and mottled, just over his hip, where he’d cut the Briarwood’s crest out after Ripley had burned it into his flesh.

Never once have the marks seared into him been put there with his consent.

That’s going to change today, though, and the thought makes him smile even as he stokes the flames of his smelting oven with practiced motions. He doesn’t need to put much effort into it – doesn’t need it as hot as normal, definitely not hot enough to melt metal. Just enough to heat the brand until it’s glowing red, then leave it to cool for a few seconds, and…

“Are you sure about this?” asks Pike, breaking him from his reverie staring into the flames with the touch of a hand against the bare skin of his upper arm. One finger tracing the slow curves of the simplified crest against the skin it will soon be seared into. There’s no judgement in her voice, only concern, and he loves her a little for that.

Eyes still on the flames, Percy nods. 

Pike hesitates, looks into his eyes with the slightest of frowns, a faint downward turn to her lips – and whatever she sees there is enough to smooth out the wrinkles on her face. She sighs, smiles slightly, nods, and presses her palm flat against his arm before wrapping her hand around the hilt of the branding iron and pulling it, cherry-red and searing hot, from the fire. “Well,” she says, professional and pragmatic as always. “Alright, then. Go sit down, before it cools too much.”

“Of course,” murmurs Percy, though it’s an effort to tear his eyes away from the brand, half-transfixed by the steadily-dimming glow. He manages it, despite the hazy anticipation fogging his mind, stumbles from furnace to chair, straddling it with his chest pressed to the back of the seat and arms crossed around it. The position would be easiest, Pike had said. Would give him something to grip. 

A few moments later, Pike joins him, brand in one hand – cooled to an ash-grey, pale and looking deceptively cold – and one of his thick leather work gloves in the other. “Open,” she says, all business now, her usual worried compassion submerged beneath the mask of competency she wears when it’s needed. When he does so, she fits the glove between his teeth, and nods satisfaction when he bites down despite the first flutterings of anxiety stirring his stomach. “Right! Okay, that’s good. Now, tell me when you’re ready, and-”

He doesn’t even have time open his mouth before she presses the brand to his skin, the metal sizzling burn-hot against unprotected flesh.

He knows what to expect from a branding, has felt them before – but this time is different. There’s power in agency, and the half-expected terror never comes. Neither does the blinding panic, or the animal urge to flee. There’s fear, certainly, an instinctive flinch away from something too-hot and dangerous, but it’s _manageable_. He breathes through it, shuddering and unsteady, but it’s still _breathing_.

It still hurts, of course, despite the surprise taking the edge off. The pain sears down into his very bones, an all-consuming fire that has him biting down on his glove hard enough to leave dents in the thick leather. He’s howling through his teeth, he knows, screaming loud enough that it would bring the rest of Vox Machina running if not for the makeshift gag.

The smell of burnt flesh fills the air, bitter and acrid and _awful_ , and for a moment there’s a flash of another place, another time. Of a dungeon, and shackles pinning his limbs down, and Ripley’s impassive face lit by the cherry glow of hot metal. The muscles in his back tremble, tight and aching, and everything tenses for a long second with the urge to _run_.

Then Pike pulls the brand away, sets it sizzling in a bucket of water, and murmurs, “Percy?” with quiet concern in her voice. At the touch of her hand on his, Ripley falls away, a mirage in the desert rippling into nonexistence. It’s just him again – him, and the workshop, and Pike.

There’s something… _transformative_ about it, he thinks, as the pain ebbs and fades, slowly, to a low ache that pulses in time to his heartbeat. It reminds him a little of the first lungful of blood in the Raven Queen’s pool, the way burning had given way to _breathing_ , the shocked wonder of it. He flexes his upper arm, experimentally, bites down on his lower lip with a sharp intake of breath at the spike in pain, and has to fight off the strangest urge to _laugh_.

He feels giddy with it all, light and weightless and dizzy – and he knows it’s the shock, the adrenaline and endorphines dumped into his bloodstream to try and counteract the pain that’s started his heart beating rabbit-fast, but it’s _beautiful_.

“Don’t do that!” says Pike, sharply, slapping his thigh hard enough to make him twitch in surprise. “No trying to aggravate it until healed, you.” She watches him for a moment, taking in the slight part of his lips and the bright, stunned light of his eyes, and sighs in quiet despair. “…Are you pleased with it?”

It takes a moment for him to remember how to speak. “ _Yes_ ,” he breathes, emphatically, eyes still wide and fixed on the mark of his family, burnt angry-red and painful into his skin. He’s always carried Whitestone with him, in one way or another – as a duty, as a nightmare, as a cross to bear. Now… now he can carry it as a symbol of pride. “I know you- you don’t exactly _understand_ this, why I wanted this, but- _thank you_ , Pike. Thank you.”

Pike, finally, smiles, teeth glinting white in the flickering light of the fire and eyes creased at the corners. “I understand enough,” she says, easily, pressing a hand to the skin just below the mark and feeding a little healing magic into him. Not enough to erase the brand, but enough to ease the pain, to kick-start the scarring and ward off infection. “There’s more to healing than just sealing up wounds, Percy – any cleric of Sarenrae knows that much. Sometimes… sometimes you’ve got to make new scars, to cover up the old ones. I can’t necessarily empathise, but… I _can_ understand.”

The knowing look in her eyes, when he meets them, is almost too much to bear. It makes his chest ache a little with the warmth of it, and he smiles, unsteadily, catching her small fingers in his and lifting them to his lips. “Thank you, then,” he says, and his voice shakes slightly as he kisses her knuckles, his eyes a little damp, a little shiny. “For helping, and for understanding.”

He’s not sure he can tell her exactly what she’s given him, today – not sure he can explain it to himself, either. It’s somewhere between catharsis and closure, and a new beginning, all tangled up with pride and pain and grief somewhere in the mess that is his mind. But when he reaches out to trace two fingers in a slow circle around the outside of his new brand, quietly awed, and sees her watching him with that quiet, gentle smile on her face… he rather thinks she might already know.

**Author's Note:**

> third fill for the hc_bingo, since that’s apparently all i can write atm, and the first one that falls more on the comfort side of things than the hurt. weirdly enough, the prompt was for “branding”, but given my love of body modification / body reclamation projects / catharsis through self-transformation, i feel like i shouldn’t be surprised at myself. also discovered recently that sarenrae is associated not only with healing and redemption, but also fire, and i’m somewhat delighted by how well that works with this.
> 
> come talk to me about stuff @sparxwrites on tumblr


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